The Death of the Video Rental

RIP Blockbuster

Ok, so you're reading the title of this entry and thinking one of two things, or both. #1; I'm jumping the gun, Blockbuster isn't officially dead yet. Or you're thinking #2; Duh, video rental stores have been dead or dying for years. Before you scoff at this article hear us out because although it's common knowledge on both fronts, it's sad nonetheless...

Think about this. The video stores are dead. Blockbuster is going to die, it's just a matter of when. How does this relate to horror your asking? Well as a kid growing up in the 80's the video store is where horror was born. You lived and died by box art and local video stores recommending titles to you. It was the glory days for non commercial horror.

Those days have been long ago memories but it's taking the recent Blockbuster news for it to really sink it. Something that will die and never be brought back. 50 years from now it will be something not even thought about. Like TV shows that have no re-runs kids and adults will forget about how things were. Not completely of course but it will be in the same category as old records or the once popular horse and buggy.

According to a report by 24/7 Wall St, ten companies are likely to no longer be around in 2011. Some brands on the list include RadioShack, Kia, T-Mobile and Blockbuster.

Blockbuster was the national leader in the video rental business for nearly two decades. But after losing another $65 million last quarter, the company is now considering bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Redbox and Netflix continue to perform well.

No one knows officially what will happen to the once mighty Blockbuster. A company that came in and mutilated the small locally owned mom and pop "movie houses" of the day. At one time in our town alone we had 6 video rental stores, 6! You'll never see that again. Gone are the days of spending 3 hours looking for perfect film art to jump out at you, that's all done online now.

Blockbuster has tried to "Red Box' things up but it isn't having near the success nor is its small online home delivery setup that they borrowed from Netflix. A case of too little to late we think. Someone beat them to the punch much like the small business owner did in the early days. Only this time the mighty company is failing because of bad business decisions and poor movie selections. The proverbially case of a "dose of their own medicine" so to speak. A whole country of past mom and pop video store owners with just a hint of a smile on their face no doubt.

Good or bad I am going to miss the smell of walking into those stores. I'm going to miss the different sections to browse, the rare titles that one store may have and another may not. Of course we all knew this day was coming but now that's its on the horizon it certainly makes one long for a "please be kind, rewind" sticker on a giant VHS clam shell case. Here is somebody looking at the past, knowing the future is brighter but missing the one on one experience with that mom and pop owner that many generations after us will never get the privilege to witness.

Log in to comment on or rate this article. You can even write your own!

I'm actually an assistant manager at my local Blockbuster. And while things seem a bit bleak for the future of the stores. The brand will live on I believe. Also as for our store, we'll still be around even without the BB name as we are franchised.

Personally and not just because I work at one, I prefer the brick and mortar options as opposed to netflix or redbox, especially redbox. God bless and peace in Christ.

I thought game rentals would save video store chains like Blockbuster, Hollywood video and Suncoast because nobody wants to pay 50 bucks for a game they can rent for 3 bucks and beat in a weekend but I was wrong. Where else are you going to find rare old movies to watch? netflix or redbox? i don't think so, they mostly have current releases or popular titles. gone forever is the ability to pick up some no name flick you never heard of. The internet download has killed movie rentals. Legal options such as much cheaper redbox @ .99 cents vs blockbuster $4.99 for new releases put the last nail in the coffin. My dad must have dropped a third of his yearly income in video rental stores in the 80's and 90's and I can remember buying discount VHS tapes when each went out of business one by one. DVDs were too much to rent cheaply I guess. An era has ended.

I'm a little indifferent to blockbuster's fate. Although with blockbuster, I would rather pay 10$ for a game rental every once in a while then pay 8$ every month on Gamefly even if I don't get a new game (though I do commemorate their wide selection). Heck! I remember when we used to be able to rent Game Systems.

In Canada we have zip.ca (netflix in the States). It's a great way to select and rent movies with over 72,000 titles. If you prefer documentaries and biographies - there are thousands of titles and I'm not really sure where else you could get them so readily. In this province of Newfoundland, we would have to drive over 5 hours to get to a movie theatre. Zip.ca is truly the answer.

you will be happy to know that Blockbuster is out in the Redbox mode. I just saw over 40 of those big blue blockbuster machine going in all over my town. At gas stations out side restuarants - yes the big B is not dead nor forgotten. Hollywood Video on the other hand......

My sister and I used to rent a VCR along with our films for the first year our family were members of our local mom and pop video store. I think my first Nintendo experience was on a rented machine from that same store. There was such a charm to that place that I now realize. Everything looks better with a foggy memory.

It is a bit funny that with all the warning signs that Blockbuster could have gleened from the world they still were caught completely off guard like the mom and pops they laid waist to decades earlier. Its sort of like how the cable companys are assuming the customers are always going to be there. The distribution of media is changing too quickly for some to understand how to evolve.

I do think its a bit premature to say that *all* video stores are going to die soon. Family Video is doing the best I've ever seen after going there almost all my life, and the only stores near me that closed are the two Hollywood Videos. (and mabye one Blockbuster out of several.)

My mom and dad owned a video store in Castle Rock Colorado when I was a kid called "The Video Exchange". First we had the local grocery store to compete with when they started renting movies, which wasn't too hard on us, but then in the center of the grocery store/ strip mall a Blockbuster opened and put my parents out of business. So I say bon voyage you bastardos!

whats redbox? is it the machine at the grocerystore that only uses credit cards and is only 3 dollars a rental. I think video stores are going ro be around for awhile yet because in canada i dont think alot of people use netflix but i think alot of people use ppv on thiere digital box. its also cheaper to rent a ppv movie then a dvd sometimes,but i have noticed that the mom and pa stores have been wiped out recently but we still have a blockbuster and 2 rogers videos in my town that are still going strong

Excellent article. As a kid growing up in the 80's, my family and I would take our Friday evening excursion to "Video Movie Express" which was a local video store in the city. We'd rent upwards of 4 or 5 movies at any given time. With two VCR's in the house, one in the living room, and one in my bedroom, my parents would watch one movie while my sister and I would watch another....then we'd swap! It was something I remember fondly as a kid because I was exposed to a great number of movies I otherwise probably would not have seen to this day. As I grew older, so did my love for movies. I eventually stopped renting and began purchasing. Before making the switch to DVD, I had over 900 VHS titles in my collection. My current DVD collection is at 850. Video stores are certainly meeting their demise around here, especially the small "mom & pop" stores. Both Blockbuster Video and Rogers Video (here in Canada) are almost always barren whenever I shop at either. But evolution is undeniable. With more accessible and convenient ways to watch movies, either via web-streaming, pay-per-view, on demand channels, or Netflix, the need for people to leave their house to choose a movie, or having to leave yet again to return it for that matter is quickly becoming a thing of the past. But, no matter how much things change, I will always have a place in my heart for those Friday movie nights.

Yea it blows to think about those awesome local video rentals being in extinction. Me and my friend use to drive to a small town just to look for ma and pa video stores to raid on their horror section but its not even worth it for that everyone is gone or have even converted to the DVD completely. Man I miss those days, I also miss when I was young renting VHS. Ebay is the only way these days which is fine but its all about the experience finding a bargain and a hidden gem!

When I was kid growing up in the 90s I and my family would hop in our huge 80s van and go to our local Video Warehouse every Friday night and we all would get to pick out like 2-3 films. Back in my day lol you could rent a movie for like a whole week for like $ 2.50. So for like 30 bucks give or take me and my 4 other brothers would have entertainment for a whole week.

They certainly based their business around providing a service that is now obsolete, but even if Blockbuster managed to catch on with a home delivery service or grocery store kiosks (they won't), it won't matter. This isn't sad because Blockbuster is some beloved brand. Most people probably aren't really attached to blockbuster. As a kid, I used to get so excited about going to rent a Nintendo game on Saturday morning (we always rented on Saturday because it had to be back by the next night) from one of many small, local video stores. I remember we had a place called Audio Video that went out of business when I was about 10, followed by Eastern Video and Video Studio. We had Video Galaxy and Video Galaxy II in town that lasted until after Blockbuster came in. They didn't last too long after that.

In conclusion, the death of Blockbuster is just a reminder of something we already knew. Video stores are over, and it's a bummer. Objectively, having NetFlix Watch Instantly streaming through my XBox and OnDemand through my cable are obviously better in every way, but they lack the excitement. I used to rent movies in high school when I thought I might bring a date home. I rented games whenever I could from about age 5 to about 16. It was a fun, exciting thing. Sometimes you'd buy candy or popcorn. Progress is important, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't bum me out when "another nostalgic part of childhood goes THBPPTH!" (Watterson)

Why would I want to pay $5 to rent one movie at Blockbuster when I can rent an unlimited amount from Netflix for $20 a month? And that includes Blu Ray. I say good riddance to Blockbuster and their stupid late fees.

It's an extremely sad thought. I have many memories of going to the video store and renting a game with my 10 dollar allowance on a Friday afternoon. I will always miss that. Farewell movie stores, I will always remember you.

Maybe I am a little older than the authorbut it really hits home. I remeber before Blockbuster, there were a few chains available, like Showtime Video and various others. That said you could still g into any grocery store and in the back corner they had a video section with Nintendo (NES) games. I was around 9 or 10 when blockbuster came to our neighborhood. It really did not run the mom and pops (and grocery stores back rooms) out of town until about 7 to 8 yrs later. By then, BB was selling pre circulated Genesis games out for $2 to $3 to make room for SNES and Playstation. This is a long comment and for that, OOPS, sorry! i just wnated to let you know that even with no pictures, your articlestill hit home because the pictures are in my memory. Kudos!

The article could have used some pics for certain but a good point was made nonetheless. I am part of this problem as I love my Apple TV because it allows me to rent HD movies and then I just delete when finished. My Xbox360 allows for certain games to be downloaded On Demand to my hard drive. The future is digital media for sure.

P.S. Where was RetroJerk to nail this guy on the no pics thing? The mother of all legitimate opportunities!!!

...OK, so I thought about it a little bit and I decided the only thing I miss about that old Blockbuster by my old house was that it really was one of the first places I rented Genesis games from circa 1995. They were always the most expensive place at $4.99 but they had the best selection and you got to keep the game for 3 days, which was an eternity as a kid. Especially on the weekend. I miss those days. I'd go to the local Blockbuster on Sunday afternoon after church with my mom or my aunt at least once a month there for a while and peruse the Genesis games and pick out something I didn't have in my collection but I desperately wanted to play. Some of the best games I remember renting would be Sonic and Knuckles, Toejam and Earl, Taz-Mania (kind of a crap game, I know), Sonic 3D Blast, and Ahhh! Real Monsters. Blockbuster was great for Genesis game rental for a while until the big bad Play Station and its cousin, the ill-fated Sega Saturn came in and took its place.

However, I continued to find other places to rent Genesis games for about 5 years until I sold my original Genesis unit for money for ironically a Playstation. Worst decision I ever made as much as I love the Playstation. Anyway, my other favorite renters as a kid were Discount Drug Mart (Ohio-based drug store with a decent selection, not as epic as Blockbuster but it was where I first played Sonic 3, Earthworm Jim 2, Virtual Pinball, and Radical Rex), Movie Gallery (Lightening Force, Prince Of Persia, and Warpspeed. OK so Warpspeed was a piece of shit, but at least I remember it...lol), and of course the best renter of all beside BB was my cousin, who had almost 30 games whereas I rocked out almost the same 15 games for most of my Genesis career. Sorry for rambling, bottom line is, Blockbuster was once the retro gaming king of my world. Of course 16-bit wasn't retro yet...

my local blockbuster will be going out of business pretty soon. i went in there and tried to by a copy of clerks on dvd because my vcr died. and wanted to watch it and they tried to charge me 10 bucks for it so i left. mostly because i onley had a 5 spot but still i thought it was a little steep for such an old movie . a classic but still .

I love Netflix but I really miss going into our local video store called Eddie C's on a Friday night and as you described looking for that one box that was going to pop out at me. It was always dimly lit in there and they had rows and rows of movies that I never heard of. I was never a fan of Blockbuster for killing off the majority of the mom and pop stores so I don't mind seeing them go away. Hopefully a new generation of mom and pop stores rise up but I'm not holding my breath.

I was walking to the store today, and the Blockbuster store right next to it had signs saying "Store Closing Sale." Everything there is 30% off! I might buy some DVDs there. I figured it was going to close soon anyway, partly because last time I there, the movies that weren't "Family" movies costed $5 a piece when they all used to be $1.06. There's no doubt in my mind that Blockbuster's going to go out of business.

I 100% agree with you on this, I can remember when i was as young as 8 going to rent movies, and since back then i lived in Colombia, i pretty much was able to rent any kind of movie i wanted, thats where i discovered so many horror movies, its sad but blockbuster definetely did it to themselves, their movie selection kept getting smaller and worse. I just changed to netflix about a month ago and I like it because there's alot of movies to stream on it and you can find rare titles on there so its a whole new different experience. R.I.P MOVIE RENTAL STORES

A Blockbuster Video just closed around the corner from my house almost a week ago. They started having a closing sale a month before but it wasn't a big deal mostly because I only ended up walking away with two DVDs I actually wanted and couldn't get cheaper elsewhere and besides who wants to build up a collection of scratched-up, sloppy ex-rentals anyhow? Before I moved a year and a half ago, my closest Blockbuster had closed shop three years ago and became a Five Guys Burgers and Fries two years ago. Love the burgers, don't miss the shoddy Blockbuster/Game Crazy that once stood there.

Speaking as someone who's first job was working in a mom and pop video store, this is a really good idea for an article, but it feels way too brief and could've used at least a couple pics. But I'll still give it a thumbs up.

I used to work at the library around the time I got my first DVD player back in 2000. The library had a large selection of VHS tapes back then that I made bigger when donating some titles I replaced DVDs with. Today, I visited to make a donation to them, and I looked around. They still have a VHS section. Granted , it's nowhere near as big as it used to be, but there's still a decent amount of them. To my great surprise, I found that one of the titles I donated almost a decade back is still there. That title is "Earth Girls Are Easy". Considering that I interviewed Julie Brown, wrote up a page for this film and added the music video for Royalty's "Baby Gonna Shake" during the brief time we had a music video section, I thought it was wonderful.

This was a great article. You don't always need pictures for an article...This is quality material.

The varying selection of video titles is what forever endeared me to the Mom & Pop video stores. Blockbuster always disappointed in terms of variety, the only time I went is when I had free rental coupons. Luckily there is a mom & pop shop just across the street from my place that specializes in 99 cent rentals to help me relive the memories. Though nothing compares to the VHS clamshells.

My hometown in Georgia at one time had 4 video stores. Eventually Moovies came along, then they became Video Update, and finally Movie Gallery. The other stores closed up as time went on, leaving Movie Gallery the only one. Eventually even it vanished. Now there's only one, and I never even go to it. Netflix, baby.

Sad they are closing down a lot of Blockbusters. But hey, there are a couple of locally owned video rental shops (such as a "Video Experience" where I live), Movie Galleries, and Family Videos all over. But hey, businesses like that can outperform Blockbuster and other banished or yet-to-be-banished video store businesses like Hollywood Video for example. The Hollywood Video that is located in Lima, OH (where I live), which has been in business for about 13 or 14 years had recently gone out of business, shortly after the Game Crazy that it housed also shut its doors for good. Right now, a local sporting goods store that shared the same building as Hollywood Video/Game Crazy is moving out of their old location to nearby Lima Mall, which is doing extremely well.

Next time when you write an article, please add some pictures. I did not see any when you wrote this. By far, this article made me cry a little bit. Thanks, you made me smile.